Luo Gan

Education in East Germany and the Rise as a Technocrat

Luo Gan was born on 18 July 1935 in Jinan, Shandong, and joined the Chinese Communist Party in June 1960. In 1953 he was admitted to the pressure-processing department of the Beijing Iron and Steel Institute; the following year he was selected to study German at Karl Marx University in Leipzig, East Germany, then did practical training at a Leipzig steelworks and foundry before transferring in 1956 to the Freiberg Mining Academy (now the Technical University of Freiberg) to study mechanical foundry engineering, spending nearly eight years studying in East Germany in total. On returning to China he was assigned to the Academy of Mechanical Science under the First Ministry of Machine-Building Industry, working as a research group leader and technician. He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and sent to do manual labor at a "May Seventh" cadre school; after being reinstated in 1970 he was transferred to Henan, serving successively as director of the preparatory office of the Luohe Machinery Research Institute and deputy director of the Zhengzhou Machinery Research Institute, both under the First Ministry of Machine-Building Industry.

Entering the Central Government: From the Trade Union Federation to State Council Secretary-General

In 1983, Luo Gan was transferred to the central government as vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. He was appointed Minister of Labor in April 1988 and moved to become Secretary-General of the State Council that December. In March 1993 he was elected State Councillor while continuing as State Council Secretary-General, and also served as deputy secretary of the Central Political-Legal Commission. At the 15th Party Congress in September 1997 he was elected to the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee; in March 1998 he was re-elected State Councillor and succeeded Ren Jianxin as Secretary of the Central Political-Legal Commission.

As State Councillor: Deploying the Suppression of Falun Gong

At the launch of the Falun Gong suppression campaign in 1999, Luo Gan coordinated the operational deployment of the campaign in his capacity as State Councillor with responsibilities over the political-legal system. He continued to oversee the sustained prohibition of Falun Gong during his subsequent tenure as Secretary of the Central Political-Legal Commission.

Politburo Standing Committee and Retirement

At the 16th Party Congress in November 2002, Luo Gan was elected to the Politburo Standing Committee, ranked ninth, while continuing as Secretary of the Central Political-Legal Commission, placing him in the Party's top decision-making body. After the 17th Party Congress in October 2007, he retired from both the Politburo Standing Committee and the Central Political-Legal Commission secretaryship, at the age of 72.